When the National Assembly elects the Speaker at its first sitting on Friday, South Africans will have their first insight into how far negotiations for a government of national unity have come. Or not.
The National Assembly Speaker is a key post - it's effectively the head of the legislative sphere of state. As such, the Speaker sets the tone, direction and work ethic of the National Assembly, and Parliament overall.
It is a post the ANC - despite its 40% tally at the polls - will be reluctant to give up. In its political worldview of controlling the levers of state power, the Speaker is to the legislative sphere of the state what the president is to the executive sphere.
If the Speaker's post goes to a political party other than the ANC, it shows the 40% party is on the back foot. Expect, also, trade-offs further down the line in, say, a key ministry like education - or an economic portfolio, except finance, which the ANC is set to keep.
On the floor of the IEC's national results centre - when the results emerged with no clear winner - the talk was of a confidence-and-supply agreement on specific issues and priorities.
The ANC would retain executive posts and the DA and IFP, Parliament. But that prospect was overtaken when ANC alliance partners Cosatu and the South African Communist Party came out to...
